for flight 11 which had crashed into tower one of thetes earlier. >> faaitary boston center, just had a report that american 11 is on its way and it's heading towards washington. >> american 11 is still in the air? >> yes. there's definitely another aircraft that hit the tower. that's the latest report we have. i can try to confirm and i.d. for you but i would assume he's somewhere over either new jersey or somewhere further south. >> okay. so american 11 isn't the hijack at all then, right? >> no, he is a hijack. >> american 11 is a hijack? >> yes. this could be a third aircraft. >> tape after tape played for the commission showed that communication between the faa, its air-traffic control centers and the military was a mess. >> the technician who took this call from thef aa immediately passed the word to the mission crew commander. he in turn reported to the battle commander. >> okay american airlines is still airborne 11, first guy.

he's headed towards washington. okay. i think we need to scramble right now and i'm going to take the fighters from otis and try to chase this guy down if i can find him. >> the mission crew commander issued an order at 9:23 quote, okay. scramble langley head them towards the washington area, unquote. >> fighter jets took off from langley air force base in virginia but due to miscommunications and a lack of specific target information, they flew in the wrong direction. >> rather than them going to washington, they flew east over the atlantic ocean. >> at 9:27 a.m. 24 minutes after the world knew america was under attack. pilot jason doll on united flight 93 received the first hijacking warn his airline. less than a minute later, hijackers were inside his cockpit cockpit. >> boston center asked the

command center to issue a nationwide cockpit security alert, but such an alert was not issued, and a quarter of an cockpit in united 93 was breached. can you explain that decision? can any of you explain that decision? >> mr. white was the senior person at the command center. he might be the best able to do that. >> i wasn't aware of that request. this is the first i have heard of it today. i wasn't in a position that day to have heard that request. i was -- have always been under the assumption a verbal warning to the airut cockpit security. i don't know if we -- if we even made a decision or if there was ever a determination made why we >> after hijackers took over flight 93 controllers heard screams and the sounds of a struggle over the radio. >> this was followed by a radio transmission with sounds of screaming and someone

yelling, quote, get out of here, end quote. >> ten minutes later there was a third radio transmission from flight 93. >> this is the captain. would like you to remain seating. there is a bomb on board and we are going back to the airport. please remain quiet. controlleronded, quote, united 93, understand you have a bomb on board. go ahead, end quote. the flight did not respond. >> united 93. united 93 do you still hear cleveland? united niner-three, do you hear cleveland? >> while flight 93 flew on without radio contact, flight 77 with hijackers at the helm closed in on washington, d.c. >> several evident dulles controllers observed a primary radar target tracking eastbound at a high rate of speed end quote, and notified reagan airport. faa personnel at both reaganr# and airports notified the secret service. >> at the white house the secret

service rushed the vice president to the president's emergency operations center beneath the building. >> there were just a million things going on at once. it was literally like a beehive of activity. >> meanwhile, ameri flight 77 was headed in the direction of the white house. suddenly it made a 330 degree right turn and began a rapid de descent toward the pentagon. at 9:37 a.m. american flight 77 crashed into the pentagon.a4 >> we're looking at live

pictures of the pentagon where there is billowing smoke. we are hearing again unconfirmed reports that this was the result of a plane crashing. 20 yards from the point of impact. there was no way to describe for you the panic that just grips your heart. i was tossed around like a rag doll. i'm on fire burning. the word terror is correct. >> at the same time in new york

stanley remained trapped on the 81st floor of tower two. >> i saw somebody waving a flashlight all around and around their head. >> all of a sudden coming out of a hole if you like in a wall, wide-eyed and very animated, waving his hand was a straker. stranger. >> a collapsed wall of sheetrock men. >> i reached down and somehow got under his arm or around his neck somehow and heaved him up. >> and he pulled with such force i just flew over on the other side, flew over and i knocked this man over. i landed on top of him. and i reached down and i grabbed this man, i hugged him and i said, look, you're my guardian angel and i gach this man a kiss. >> this stranger gave me this big kiss and i said i'm brian, and i'm stanley, he said that's how stanley and i met. >> and this man put his hand

lovingly around my shoulder, come on, buddy, let's go home. >> as brian and stanley searched for escape route, hundreds of others were still trapped above the fire in the twin towers. >> my first question to the chief was can we get helicopters up to the roof and help any of those people? and pete pointed to a big flame that was shooting out of the north power at the time, and he said to me my guys can save everybody below the fire but i can't put a helicopter above the fire. to go many p headedght they could go to the roof because people went to the roof in 1993. >> civilians were not informed that rooftop evacuations were not part of the port authority's evacuation plan. >> when they got to the roof, the doors were locked.

>> they were not informed that access to the roof required a key. the port authority acknowledges th had no protocol for rescuing people trapped above the fire in the towers. on the streets peoplee ar as fast as they could. >> i saw people running. i saw people exactly what we wanted them to do. we wanted to get them out of the area. >> on that day, that brooklyn bridge thatated brooklyn from manhattan, that was the bridge that really came to separate heaven from hell. [ male announcer ] this december, remember -- you can stay in and share something... or you can get out there and actually share something. ♪ ♪ the lexus december to remember sales event is on. this is the pursuit of perfection.4'p

idential motorcade was rushing to a sarasota airport. >> the vice president was in contact with the president. >> the president told the vice president, quote, sounds like we have a minor war going on here. i heard about the pentagon. we're at war, somebody is going to pay, close quote. >> by the time air force one took off, hijackers had been 234r50iing united flight 93 for nearly 30 minutes. at 9:46 and two minutes later command center updated faa headquarters that united 93 was now, quote, 29 minutes out of washington, d.c., end quote. >> affirmative. he said there was a bomb on board. >> by 9:49 a.m. the faa had known for more than 15 minutes that united 93 was a possible hijack. three passenger jets had already crashed into american landmarks. still, no one at the faa

requested military assistance for flight 93. >> they know that the trade tower and the pentagon was struck and they don't tell the military command there's a fourth plane hijacked and in the air and at this point turned around and headed toward washingt i mean it's just incomprehensible. >> do we want to think about scrambling aircraft? >> oh god, i don't know. >> that's a decision somebody's going to have to make probably in the next ten minutes. >> you know, everybody just left the room. >> they just dithered for minutes, precious minutes, just not wanting to pick up the phone when they knew we were under a terrorist attack. >> when you listen to the faa tapes, it's just these people were so incompetent in their jobs. >> it was just -- it was bone chilling to listen to that recording. >> as the faa attempted to coordinate the crisis in the

air, flight 93 had reversed its westerly course. it was now headed toward mwashington. for six harrowing minutes the passengers of flight 93 battled their hijackers for control of the plane. ñfu at 10:03 a.m. it was all over. united flight 93 crashed in ashanksville, pennsylvania. >> okay there is now -- on united 93. >> yes. >> there's a report of black smoke in the last position i gave you, 15 miles from the johnstown. >> from the airplane or from the ground? >> they're speculating it's from the aircraft. >> it hit the ground. that's what they're speculating. speculation only. >> i also want to give you a heads up. >> go ahead. >> united 93, do you have

>> he's down. >> he's down? >> when did he land? >> he did not land. >> oh he's down. >> yes. >> somewhere up northeast of camp david. >> not one from faa headquarters requested military assistance regarding united 93 nor did any manager at faa headquarters pass any information it had to the military. >> thank god the passengers on 93 took the plane over, but a plane was heading to washington, d.c., faa headquarters knew it and didn't let the military know. >> there was only one set of fighters orbiting washington, d.c. during this time frame. the langley f-16s, but the langley pilots were never briefed about the reason they were scrambled. as the lead pilot explained no one told us anything. >> the nation owes a debt to the passengers of united 93. their actions saved the lives of countless others. >> at the end of the day, the question remained, could any of these flights have been

intercepted by the military before they crashed? >> would it have been physically possible if everything had gone right in terms of communication and of information and communication of orders for the military pilots to have shot down either the plane that hit the first world trade tower, the plane that hit the second world trade tower, or the plane that hit the pentagon? >> you assumed that faa told us as soon as they knew. >> right. >> and if that is the case yes we could shoot down the airplanes. >> all right. thank you, general.

1 it appears to be what people already describing as a highly sophisticated coordinated attack. >> as the government struggled to respond to the sudden attacks, terrorism experts quickly identified bin laden as the perpetrator. >> i knew immediately it was bin laden when the first plane hit. he also had the motive and who else had the ability?

>> by september 11th 2001 osama bin laden's al qaeda terrorists had been attacking american interests for almost ten years. first, they were suspected of hitting the world trade center in 1993. >> we heard the explosion. the building rattled. the whole thing shook. >> it was shocking when the world trade center was hit, and it was really a tragedy, but i don't think many people recognized that this was a harbinger for worse things to come. >> five years later, bin laden's operatives bombed two american embassies in africa killing more than 200 and injuring 5,000.

>> president clinton and i have said we will rest until we find some solution for this terrorist problem. our memory is long and our reach is far. >> after the embassy bombings the clinton white house launched missile attacks at al qaeda camps. but bin laden survived. the clinton administration had other chances to kill bin laden. one was in 1999. >> osama bin laden was visiting a camp in the southern part of afghanistan in kandahar province. a desert camp where there were princes from the united arab emirates emirates, and it was an excellent chance. we knew when he was going to be there. it was a very isolated area.

there would be no collateral damage to civilians. >> but the commission learned that foreign policy concerns complicated matters. >> according to cia officials, policymakers were concerned about the danger that a strike might kill an emirati prince or other senior officials who might be with bin laden or close by. >> what i did was to call the director of central intelligence and say that i had finally been presented with satellite photography of the facility and it was very clear to me that this looked like something other than a terrorist camp. it looked like a luxury hunting trip and i asked him to look into it personally. >> the national security council instead decided to call the government of the united arab emirates tell them that we knew bin laden was in the desert and that we also knew that they were hunting and maybe it would be a good idea that they didn't hang

around. >> the decision ultimately was george tenet's, and george tenet recommended no action be taken. >> the next time the satellite went overhead all that was left of the carp was a pile of burning garbage. i found it very upsetting that -- on the most selfish level that the choice was not to protect my children but to save the head of this arab hunting camp whose family was about to buy some number of billions of dollars of u.s. fighter aircraft. >> then bin laden struck again. in 2000 al qaeda terrorists used a small boat to bomb the "uss cole" refueling in yemen. 17 american sailors died.

>> smart people working in counterterrorism cases knew early on there was no doubt about it that it was an al qaeda operation driven by bin laden. >> there wasn't an uproar and essentially a decision was made to put it off to the next admission and deal with it. >> it wasn't a priority. >> people were focusing on other things. >> doing absolutely nothing on the "uss cole" was a response that people took note of. >> no one did anything after the "uss cole." that must have made al qaeda feel kind of empowered. >> by the time of the "cole" bombing, bin laden's 9/11 plot was well under way. hijackers were settling down in america and learning to fly airplanes. >> they live in rooming houses.

they lived in motel 6s. >> mindy, who lost her husband in the world trade center, presented evidence to the commission that revealed serious immigration violations. >> i am holding in the hand some of the applications of the terrorists who killed my husband. all of these forms are incomplete and incorrect. had the ins or the state department followed the law, at least 15 of the hijackers would have been denied visas and would not have been in the united states on september 11th, 2001. >> while the hijackers made their preparations for the 9/11 attacks, the white house changed hands. once in office president bush

decided not to immediately respond to the "cole" bombing. instead, the commission learned he'd ordered the development of a long-range plan to eliminate bin laden. >> thank you very much. secretary powell. >> mr. chairman, president bush and all of us on his team knew that terrorism would be a major concern for us. he wanted a they areorough strategy to go after al qaeda. >> he made clear to us that he did not want to respond to al qaeda one attack at a time. he told me he was tired of swatting flies. the president says i have no hesitancy about going after him, but i didn't feel that sense of urgency, and my blood was not nearly as boiling. >> every morning that summer bush received a president's daily brief or pdb outlining security threats to the united states. >> isn't it a fact dr. rice that the august 6th pdb warned

against possible attacks in this country and i ask you whether you rm the title of that pdb. >> i believe the title was bin laden determined to attack inside the united states. now, the pdb -- >> thank you. >> no -- >> i will get -- >> i would like to finish my point here. >> i didn't know there was a point. >> you asked me whether or not it warned of attacks. >> i asked you what the title was. >> you said did that warn of attacks? it did not warn of attacks inside the united states. it was historical information based on old reporting. there was no new threat information and it did not, in fact warn of any coming attacks inside the united states. >> ultimately nobody in the government was able to stop bin laden's plot.

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by 9:30 a.m. thousands of people at the world trade center were fighting for their lives. brian clark and stanley were descending tower two from the 81st floor. on the 31st floor, they found a conference room with working phones, but it didn't do much good. >> brian picked up the phone and he's frantically dialing 911. >> she said hold on a moment, you're going to have to tell my supervisor, click, so i was on hold. i must have waited 30 seconds before somebody else, i don't know if it was a supervisor or not, came on. i told them the story as well and the second person said

well, just a minute. you'll have to -- i'll have to get -- click. i'm on hold again. >> it was a wholesale failure of the 911 emergency system. people were told hold on. people were told to call back. people were told stay where you are. when that was the worst thing to do. on that day the entire system collapsed. >> 911 operators were in the dark about the magnitude of the disaster. they were unable to pass along useful information to panicked callers. >> i would have to say 911 wasuld it have been larger, should it have been anticipated? yes, it probably should have, but it wasn't. >> to make matters worse, the police department the port authority, and the fire department couldn't share vital information.

>> the radios we didn't have a channel we could communicate with the police department on. >> the way in which the fire department and the police department communicate is different because generally they have different missions. the best answer is they should have radios that are interoperable so that in an emergency, both of them could be switched onto the same channel. >> but in the interim -- >> those radios d not exist today. >> so when the police department helicopter surveyed the situation, the fire department didn't get that information. >> the chiefs in the north tower were forced to make decisions based on little or no information. >> one of the most critical things in a major operation like this is to have information. we didn't receive any reports of what was seen from the helicopters. it was impossible to know how much damage was done on the upper floors whether the stairwells were intact or not.

>> people watching on tv suddenly had more knowledge of what was happening 100 floors above us than we did in the lobby. >> by now brian clark and stanley made it to the ground floor of tower two. >> the only people we saw were the firefighters and the cops and the ems workers. >> the two men were told to get away from the building as fast as they could. >> stanley stopped, and he looked back at two world trade center. >> and i'm looking at brian and said, this building is going down now.

>> huge explosions. >> oh my god! >> the whole building collapsed! the whole building collapsed! >> get out of here!

>> the whole event only took ten seconds, but it just seems to expand in your mind when you're seeing it. it was the tower that we had just exited and where our company was up on the 84th floor. >> then i heard on the radio something i'll never forget.

the transmedicationission said, tower two is down. all units evacuate tower one. i couldn't believe it. what do you mean tower two is down? i mean, it's the world trade center. >> the first tower to be hit was still standing. port authority cop david limb was helping evacuees on the 35th floor. >> and now the people i was with were they upset, of course. i just told them we had to keep going, and we started heading down again. >> at 10 08 a.m., an nypd helicopter pilot reported that tower one wouldn't last much longer. >> i got down to the fifth floor, well one more flight down was as far as we got. and the building start coming down. >> i want the units coming in.

>> it was like an onrushing locomotive or an avalanche. i guess my final thoughts were about my family. i thought about my wife my kids kids. excuse me. i hope they would thinkell of me for what i did. i was very fortunate. when the debris stopped falling

falling -- excuse me. >> take your time. first i thought that i had died. i heard nothing, i saw nothing. but then i heard a voice. it was a voice, who's here? we couldn't see each other. it was totally black. we were alive. we were virtually standing on top of what was left of the world trade center. when i say that you have to picture a straw and a pancake. we were in that straw. >> david limb and a handful of others were standing inside a lone stairwell that had somehow withstood the collapse.

>> eventually i remember ladder company 43 are coming around the corner. never thought i'd be so happy to see firemen you know and they came, they threw us ropes. >> as david limb was treated for his wounds, lee arrived at the trade center to search for his missing son, jonathan. >> we walked down the street,many of the people were still just moving away from it and walking, bleeding walking up the street. i just had a sinking feeling that we might have a problem trying to find jonathan.

>> stanley and i talked for 45 minutes finding out about each other's families and so on. he gave me his personal business card. i put the card in my shirt pocket. >> he jumped into a cab -- >> and this feeling came over me that stanley doesn't exist. he was a guardian angel sent to get me. and then i remembered the business card and i reached in my pocket and pulled out the business card and of course there was a stanley or there is a stanley. it would have been a marvelous story if there was no business card in there, but i knew stanley was real and i put the card back and i still carry it in my wallet. crazy.

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shoppers are flacking toocking to stores on black friday. more news later. now let's go back to "on native soil." >> do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? >> i do. >> i do. >> thank you very much sir. >> as the hearings went on in early 2004 the families about what happened on september 11th they also grew frustrated with the lack of cooperation by many witnesses. >> a lot of th heard people that had clearly done own investigation t when they were asked a specific question said they'd have to get back to the commission. >> i will have to get back to you on that. >> aidei'd like tubdore. >> that occurred before i began my tenure. what i know abouter the fact. >> they were not w to publicly disclose anything that

might hold them accountable. >> you just cannot have a mass murder like this that the government wasn't able to stop eld accountable. >> but instead we got speeches about how we're perfect, we did everything right. nothing could have been done better. >> our anger should clearly be directed and the blame should source and one source alone, the terrorists who killed our loved ones. >> and that just intensified our anger and drove us on to try harder to get answers. >> more than anything else the families wanted accountability from their government. >> i'd like to call the hearing back to order. >> then as the hearings nerd their conclusion they go it sadly from only one man. the man who had been in charge of counterterrorism in the clinton and bush administration. >> i welcome these hearings because it is finally a forum where i can apologize to the loved ones of the victims of

9/11. to them who are here in the room, to those who are watching on television your government failed you. those entrusted with protecting you failed you, and i failed we tried hard, but that doesn't matter because wefor that failure i would ask once all the facts are out for your understanding and for your forgiveness. >> it was the first acknowledgment that our government had failed. that was what made the apologyrtant to me. >> i was struck by his apology, not apologizing, but because it was the first time i had ever heard anyone apologize for take

responsibility for what happened. >> st admitted they made a mistake and said they were sorry. know we hadn'trd that before. [ male announcer ] this december, remember -- ♪ ♪ you can stay in and like something... ♪ ♪r alarm deactivates ] ♪ ♪ ...or you can get out there with your family and actually like something. the lexus december to remember sales event is on offering some of our best values of the year. this is the pursuit of perfection.

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> nearly three years after the attacks, the commission the family had fought so hard for released its final report on the events of september 11th.

>> today we present this report and these recommendation to the president of the united states to the united states congress and the american people. >> the commission made a number of recommendations, including tightening u.s. borders the next attack sharing information among agencies appointing a national intelligence director and creating a national counterterrorism center. >> we need to ensure that the key countries -- >> anyone who said that the commission wasn't going to come up with anything new under the sun, which is one of the things that the white house told us was wrong. because clearly we didn't have a director of national intelligence and we would not have had a director of national intelligence had it not been for the commission. >> on that september day, we

were prepared. the magnitude period of time. as we detail and management and ability and, above all the ground truth about 9/11 is thatit this government blew it it. >> i've seen these wonderful, wonderful surviving family members of changed the course of history. >> pushed for the 9/11

re legislated are now going to push"g for these reforms to be implemented. >> it's the most important thing that i can do to my wife's memory is to make sure that she didn't die in vain. >> we close, most importantly, by thanking the families who lost loved-c ones on 9/11. you demanded the of this commission you have encouraged us every step of the way as partners and as witnesses from your grief you have drawn strength. >> among the casualties on 9/11,

60 police officers and 343 were firefighters. >> to this day, i have no information about what happened to my son and the entire engine and continue to seek what really happened to my son on 9/11. >> we lost our son, we lost our daughter-in-law and this little 2 1/2-year-old little angel. that's what i lost. >> they say you've lost your future and she contributed somethin wonderful and acontributed something wonderful

because that's what she was like. >> when brad died we lost our futu daughter-in-law, and grandchildren. >> we have a different family now, i have a different marriage now than i had before 9/11. i'm a different person now and it's not temporary. it doesn't go away with a band-aid. you live with it the rest of youre. >> i got a phone call lee, we have your son over on the side was a basket and my son was in it. and it was covered with a tarp. i went over to my i knelt down i spoke to him, and had to feel him from head to toe to satisfy my own curiosity. then with the help of my son brendan and the sqi$uad of 288, we

picked up my son and carried him up the hill. >> because of the coun sometimes it's)9 complacent. i speak to thousands of people and people say to me, well, what should we do? i say to them very nicely, i say, i'm not going to pick on you but how many of you, after hearing about the 9/11 that the government wasn't going to maybe act on it, how many of you -- and raise your hands -- called a u.s. senator, senators your congressman in your states and demanded that they act on it? raise your hands? well, you know what the results were. i was lucky if i got one or two. complacency. so what can we do as a country? don't say to yourselves

that's an issue that happened in new york city. it didn't happen in new york city. it happened in the united states of america and happened on our soil. ep